The daffodil greens birth themselves
out of the sleeping dirt, aiming for sunlight.

And there is a part of me that half-expects
your ring to be stuck on one of them,
rising from the grave and ready to tell
the tale of its mysterious disappearance
one fall day some years ago.

Like that woman in the news last spring
who pulled up a carrot from her garden
and found that it had slipped fortuitously
through a ring she lost, and grew as stout
as a finger to wear it on her behalf,
before graciously landing in her salad.

I wonder sometimes if you lost your ring
on purpose, letting me waste the money
on a metal detector and spend
afternoon upon cold afternoon
with our baby strapped to my back,
fruitlessly hunting, and thinking to myself
that with each passing year, wherever it is,
it will sink deeper.

Though come spring there’s a part of me—
the part, I suppose, that also believes in
fairies and wishing wells—
that keeps my eye on the daffodil greens
as they emerge from their winter’s sleep,
just in case one of them has something
to return to me.